Bren
The Bren (from Brno, the Czechoslovak city of design, and Enfield, the location of the British Royal Small Arms Factory), usually called the Bren Gun, was a series of light machine guns adopted by Britain in the 1930s and used in various roles until 1991. While it is best known for its role as the British and Commonwealth forces' primary infantry light machine gun (LMG) in World War II, it was also used in the Korean War and saw service throughout the later half of the 20th century including the Falklands War and the 1991 Gulf War. The Bren was a modified version of a Czechoslovak-designed light machine gun, the ZB vz.26, which British Army officials had tested during a firearms service competition in the 1930s. The later Bren featured a distinctive curved box magazine, conical flash hider and quick change barrel. In the 1950s the Bren was rebarrelled to accept the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. Although fitted with a bipod, it could also be mounted on a tripod or vehicle-mounted. The Bren was replaced as the section LMG by the L7 general purpose machine gun (GPMG), a heavier belt-fed weapon. This was in turn supplemented in the 1980s by the L86 Light Support Weapon firing the 5.56x45mm NATO round, leaving the Bren only in use on some vehicles. General Information In general, the Bren was considered a reliable and effective light machine gun, though in North Africa it was reported to jam regularly unless kept very clean and free of sand. Its 30-round magazine was in practice usually filled with 28 or 29 rounds to prevent jams and avoid wearing out the magazine spring. Care needed to be taken with magazine loading to ensure that the .303 cartridge rims did not overlap the wrong way, causing a jam. The rounds had to be loaded the correct way, each round ahead of the previous round. There was also a 100-round drum magazine available for the Bren used in the anti-aircraft role. The Bren was officially operated by a two man crew: a gunner to fire and carry the Bren, and a reloader to reload the gun and replace the barrel when it overheated—the latch in front of the magazine was rotated to unlock the barrel so that it could be replaced: the carrying handle was used to grip the hot barrel without risk of burning. The reloader carried extra ammunition and barrels. During wartime, however, the two-man crew concept was abandoned and the weapon was commonly operated by one man, the gunner (as depicted in the picture to the right). The Bren had an effective range of around 600 yards (550 m) when fired from a prone position with a bipod. Initial versions of the weapon were sometimes considered too accurate because the cone or pattern of fire was extremely concentrated, resulting in multiple hits on one or two enemies, with other enemy soldiers going untouched. More than a few soldiers expressed a preference for worn-out barrels in order to spread the cone of fire among several targets. Later versions of the Bren addressed this issue by providing a wider cone of fire. For a light machine gun of the interwar and early WWII era the Bren was about average in weight. On long marches in non-operational areas it was often partially disassembled and its parts carried by two soldiers. Writing about his experiences in the infantry during the Burma campaign, the author George MacDonald Fraser stated that one Bren gun was issued to each eight-man section. One soldier would be the gunner and another would be his 'number two', who would carry extra ammunition and the spare barrel and change magazines in combat. The top-mounted magazine vibrated and moved during fire, making the weapon more visible in combat, and many Bren gunners used paint or improvised canvas covers to disguise the prominent magazine. Realising the need for additional section-level firepower, the British Army endeavoured to issue the Bren in great numbers, with a stated goal of one Bren to every four private soldiers. Service during WWII The British Army adopted it in 1935 following extensive trials of the Czechoslovak ZB vz.26 light machine gun which was manufactured in Brno, although the ZB vz. 26 was not actually submitted for the trials, a slightly modified model was submitted; the ZB vz. 27. A licence to manufacture was sought and the Czech design was modified to British requirements. The major changes were in the magazine and barrel. The magazine was curved in order to feed the rimmed .303 British cartridge, a change from the various rimless Mauser-design cartridges used to date, such as the 7.92 mm Mauser round. These modifications were categorised in various numbered designations, ZB vz. 27, ZB vz. 30, ZB vz. 32, and finally the ZB vz. 33, which became the Bren. Other weapons that were submitted for the trials were: the Madsen, Vickers-Berthier, Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and the Neuhausen KE7. The Vickers-Berthier was later adopted by the Indian Army and also saw extensive service in WWII. A gas-operated weapon, the Bren used the same .303 ammunition as the standard British rifle, the Lee-Enfield, firing at a rate of between 480 and 540 rounds per minute (rpm), depending on model. Each gun came with a spare barrel that could be quickly changed when the barrel became hot during sustained fire, though later guns featured a chrome-lined barrel which reduced the need for a spare. The Bren was magazine-fed, which slowed its rate of fire and required more frequent reloading than British belt-fed machine guns such as the larger .303 Vickers machine gun. However, the slower rate of fire prevented more rapid overheating of the Bren's air-cooled barrel, and the Bren was several pounds lighter than belt-fed machine guns. Because it was more easily portable, it could be fired on the move and from standing positions. The magazines also prevented the ammunition from getting dirty, which was more of a problem with the Vickers with its 250-round canvas belts. Category: Allied Weapons